


Bed-Cave

by alicekittridge



Series: Forms and Faces [1]
Category: The Favourite (2018)
Genre: Missing Scene, Other, POV Third Person, Present Tense, Sexual References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:14:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23308153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicekittridge/pseuds/alicekittridge
Summary: "Have you ever fancied me, Harley?"They are, he thinks, rather like friends now, and so he replies, "Perhaps a little."
Series: Forms and Faces [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676203
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Bed-Cave

**Author's Note:**

> The first in a series of pieces that've been stuck in my head since (finally!) seeing this wonderful film. Thank you so much for reading, and for letting me briefly pop into a tiny fandom. Any historical inaccuracies are on me; work doesn't leave me much time to research these days.
> 
> Content warnings: Some sexual references.

**“H** AVE YOU EVER fancied me, Harley?”

The bedchamber is warm, filled with the last vestiges of the new spring’s evening light, clouded from the smoke slowly rising from Harley’s pipe and the smoke he expends from his chest at irregular intervals. It’s his father’s pipe, carved from a dark piece of ebony and disastrously out of fashion, hence the reason he’s taken to only smoking it in private. He sucks on the end of it, giving the question some thought. Abigail had been a plain girl upon her arrival, her clothes the kind the peasants wore on Sundays, and yet there was something about her that struck him—more than the fact she was a cousin of the Queen’s favorite. Her wit, perhaps; the level of education that was uncommon for a woman of her station; her pretty, alert eyes.

They are, he thinks, rather like friends now, and so he replies, “Perhaps a little.”

“Only a little?”

“Certainly not as much as Masham. The poor fellow’s about to write you ballads.”

“But enough to think of me?” she says. He tilts his attention to her, studies her. White nightclothes, hair tied back to keep it away from her face, pretending to read a novel.

“All right,” he concedes, “I’ve thought of you. It is, however, not the same as fancying.”

“So you say.”

“Do you even like Masham?” Harley questions. His tobacco is burning low. Re-filling it would require shifting in the chair, which would draw more attention to him.

“One may draw the conclusion that he is a brute.”

“Why?”

“He longed to bugger me in the woods.”

“Most gentlemen have buggered a woman in the woods.”

“Have you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you are not most gentlemen.” She turns a page and continues, “Masham is a handsome brute, underneath all that court-dress. And his name—” she says it once, as if it would be sacrilege to say it multiple times, “—rolls so _finely_ off the tongue, does it not?”

Harley rolls his eyes. “Are you jesting with me?”

“On the contrary.”

“He speaks of wanting to marry you.”

“Tell him, if you are in such good communication with him, that he must win me over.”

Harley blows smoke out the side of his mouth. “What excuse shall I give?” he says. “You spend all your hours at the Queen’s side, since Lady Marlborough is God knows where?”

“If you like.”

If one thing upsets his nerves, it is avoidance. He steels himself. Thinks on the truth in his own words. Several times he has run into Abigail in the night-lit hallway, where she’s clearly come from the Queen’s bedchamber, her appearance neat, as if she’d finished dressing not moments before. He never makes comment, only gives her a polite bow or greeting before bidding her good-night and going on his way. He has his theories. Surely relieving the Queen of the immense pain in her legs does not require one to be completely naked. Or, perhaps the Queen has unspeakable desires, and she prefers her servants to be naked when working her over. But what one does in their bedchamber is their own business. Harley’s suspicions have been raised, but he will not ask. He respects one’s privacy. He will, instead, be like he is when in debate. He presses, “You admit the truth in my words.”

_“‘Thou shalt not lie,’”_ quotes Abigail.

“Oh, quiet, you silly tramp; you are hardly religious.”

“I’ve read the Bible, sir.”

“Everyone and their mother has,” says Harley, “but do you practice its teachings?”

“Your carriage has strayed down a different road.”

At last, with impatient vigor, Harley procures more tobacco for his pipe. He says, “What is it you see in the Queen?”

“She is a wonderful person,” Abigail replies easily, and then adds, “Her outwardly nature is not at all what she is. There is a tenderness about her, a delicacy…” She trails off, not reading the book at all now, instead gone to a faraway place—not knowing her expression has revealed to Harley everything. Sarah was the she-favorite. Then, by some act of God or man, thrown over, supplanted by Abigail.

“He truly will have to win you over,” Harley murmurs.

“My dear Mr. Harley,” Abigail responds, “it is entirely possible for one to love many a person at once.”

“Certainly,” Harley agrees, despite not understanding, “but I mentioned nothing about love.” He pauses, inhaling more smoke. Blows it out. “Are you in love?”

A serious mask passes over her face, just as a large cloud passes over what remains of the sun. “I know not.”

Backing off the offensive approach, Harley takes a gentler tone with her. “We are friends, you know.”

“Only for strategy’s sake.”

“A friendship nonetheless.” She says nothing. He continues, “Do we not have another’s trust?”

“Yes.”

“Believe me when I tell you I’ll not utter a word of what you confide in me. It will remain an absolute secret.” (He has his friends and he has his critics, and both understand very well that Robert Harley is a man who keeps secrets.) He asks again, “Are you in love with the Queen, Abigail?”

She shakes her head. “I cannot tell you if it is love I feel; only a level of affection and admiration and care and… lust.” The last word is whispered. It may very well be the first time Abigail is admitting it aloud, to someone other than the Queen. “But what is love, Mr. Harley,” she continues, impassioned now, “if not something that comes in many forms? Perhaps I serve her and I fuck her and I am concerned for her health… Is that not all love?”

He knows not what to say in response. It is a very compelling argument. He stuffs more tobacco into his pipe, re-lights it. The sun disappears behind the horizon, leaving in its wake a calm blue glow. On the grounds, whose grass is beginning to color a lush green, a red-coated guardsman walks along the gravel path, carrying a lit torch to light the others, the wig upon his head blowing in the breeze.

“I’ve always loathed the spring here,” Harley finds himself saying. “Makes one’s wig nearly blow off, but not before it gets soaked with rain.” He remembers ten years before, at seventeen, only a tender lawman’s apprentice then, how Mr. Leigh would constantly fix his wig and reprimand, “Mr. Harley, do be careful with it. This wig is the lawman’s pride, and the noble’s announcement.” The orange fire flickers in the wind. A spittle of rain shines in its light.

Harley smokes what tobacco is left in his pipe. He rises and takes up his ghastly wig, neglecting to put it on; he will not until he’s returned to his own chamber. “Good-day, Miss Hill,” he says.

The door shuts on a somber-looking Abigail, so unusual for her character, his own heart feels heavy, but only for a few small moments.


End file.
